Stargate Atlantis: Third Path: Book 8 in the Legacy series

by Melissa Scott

“They’re clearly triggered by something passing over the central pod,” Parrish said. “Possibly just by the change in light, or maybe by sound waves, or possibly by change in air currents, but regardless of the mechanism, the triggering object needs to pass directly over the sense organ on top of the pod. The bolts went straight up last time, or at a slight angle off the vertical, again calculated to bring down something flying over the plant. As long as we don’t trip that sensor, I think we’ll be all right.”

  Ronon nodded again. “All right. But I want us off world before it gets dark.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Aulich said. “That gives us about eight hours. A little less.”

  And that should be plenty of time, Parrish thought, tucking the last of the MRE wrappers back into its bag. Plenty of time to get the samples Hunt wanted and plenty of time for Atlantis to deal with its problems. Surely.

  Twenty or so more minutes passed. Elizabeth had opened a package of granola bars that Rodney had brought with him, trying to remember the last time she’d eaten, when suddenly the regeneration tube lights dimmed and brightened, dimmed and brightened.

  In an instant, Daniel was beside it. “I think that’s what they do when they’re ending the cycle,” he said.

  “How would you know that?” Rodney asked. “It might mean anything.”

  “Because when Thor healed Jack the time he’d been stuck in stasis because of the Ancient head-sucky device, that’s what it did right before the cycle ended,” Daniel replied.

  “Oh please. Is head-sucky device a technical term?”

  “Cut it out, Rodney,” Elizabeth said, putting the granola bar down and joining the others beside the tube. “We haven’t seen one of these devices before and he has.”

  The lights brightened and then dimmed again, and the transparent faceplate over the tube began to retract. Inside, the Vanir stirred. Its grayish lids opened and then its eyes widened.

  “We mean you no harm,” Elizabeth said quickly.

  “Unlike you, who meant her all kinds of harm when you kidnapped her,” Rodney said. He spread his hands as Elizabeth looked around at him. “Just saying. He kidnapped you. That wasn’t exactly friendly.”

  “And now you have kidnapped me,” the Vanir said. It sat up, looking for a moment disoriented as it glanced around the room. Or at least Elizabeth assumed that was what its expression meant. The Asgard didn’t show facial expressions in the same way humans did, in her very limited experience, so it was a guess.

  “We rescued you from your crashed ship,” Daniel said diplomatically, sitting down on the end of the regeneration tube to be more or less face to face, a move Elizabeth inwardly applauded.

  “After you caused the crash in the first place.”

  “After you kidnapped me,” Elizabeth said, her mouth firming into a hard smile. “So I don’t think you have the high moral ground here. I’d like to know why you did that. If there was information you wanted, you could have started by asking me.”

  “Why would you tell me the truth?” the Vanir asked as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. Perhaps it was, in his culture. No, Elizabeth thought, these were not at all the Asgard of the Milky Way. They had an entirely different set of assumptions, for all that they appeared to be the same race.

  “If you had simply asked me, I would have considered it,” Elizabeth said. “It is to our advantage to open diplomatic relations and be on good terms with our neighbors.”

  The Vanir looked at her like she was crazy. “You would give me information for nothing?”

  “Perhaps we could have worked out a trade that would benefit us both,” Elizabeth said. “Information for information.”

  At that it seemed to relax a little, perhaps because she had suggested something that made sense.

  “On the other hand,” Daniel said, calmly adjusting his glasses, “we don’t usually deal with kidnappers. We might make an exception, but we would expect you to answer our questions truthfully first.” An unspoken ‘or’ hung at the end of his sentence. After all, Elizabeth thought, the Vanir consider us barbarians who aren’t worth negotiating with.

  There was a long moment, during which Dekaas was the only one who moved, coming a little closer.

  The Vanir took a breath. “What is this place? I do not know this facility. Where are my shipmates?”

  “You answer our questions first,” Elizabeth said. It was worth gambling on a guess. “We already know you wanted to kidnap me because I used to be Ascended. So why don’t you tell us your name and let’s talk?”

  The Vanir remained stock still for a moment, disconcerting, as humans always move in small ways even when they’re trying to be still. Elizabeth waited.

  “Very well,” it said at last. “You may call me Dis. And as to why we wanted you – you do know that not very many individuals unascend, don’t you?”

  “We do,” Daniel said. “But it’s entirely possible.” He didn’t add that he’d done it too, which was probably a wise move. He glanced at Elizabeth and she nodded imperceptibly. “And we know you may have a device to assist someone to unascend.”

  “We have a device to force someone to unascend,” Dis said.

  “Which is pretty shitty, if you ask me,” Rodney said.

  Dekaas frowned.

  Dis’s voice was tranquil. “We believe it will work. But what we do not know is if it will be harmless to the subject. If unascension causes damage, that would be problematic for us. We wished to examine a female individual who had unascended and determine whether there was genetic damage as a result.”

  “Why a female?” Rodney asked.

  At the same moment Daniel said, “Because ova are not renewable.”

  “Every female is born with the full complement of eggs she will produce in her lifetime,” Dekaas said. “Unlike males, whose genetic material renews in a matter of days or weeks.”

  Dis inclined his or her head. “Just so.”

  “Ran,” Elizabeth said. A picture was beginning to form in her mind, a terrible idea. “You want to force Ran to unascend because she Ascended before your species did itself irrevocable genetic damage through generations of cloning.”

  “She is a female who at the time of her Ascension carried a nearly full complement of undamaged ova,” Dis said. “Thousands of undamaged ova, each with a unique and unduplicated mix of genes. Each one, crossed with our damaged material, has the potential to grow into a unique individual, uncloned and completely original.”

  “You want to make her unascend so that you can harvest her eggs?” Rodney sounded indignant. “Seriously? That is the most sick and twisted…”

  “However, as far as we know, she is the only female of our species to ascend, so we must take no chances that we will cause damage with the device or through unascension itself.”

  “So you wanted to examine my eggs and see if they were damaged,” Elizabeth said. “Without bothering to ask.”

  “It is necessary. We regret the loss, but we are prepared to do what we must.”

  “That sounds like you were intending an autopsy,” Daniel said.

  “Of course. We need to have full access to the ovarian structures as well as the ova themselves. If there were partial damage, we might be able to determine the cause and prevent it. After all, the future of our species is at stake.”

  Elizabeth stood up. “Forgive me if I don’t have a lot of sympathy.”

  Daniel shook his head. “The Asgard of the Milky Way faced the same choice, and they chose to die out rather than do something like this.”

  “That may have been their choice, but it is not ours,” Dis said calmly. “We do not choose extinction. Nor would you, were you in our situation.”

  “To violate every right that Ran has?” Daniel asked.

  “The rights of one person or of an entire race? I think the answer is clear,” Dis said. “It is regrettable that we must interfere with Ran’s choice, but the good of our entire species outweighs that. I do not intend to let
my people perish.”

  “At what cost?” Daniel demanded. “If you begin by forcing Ran to unascend, taking her eggs without her consent —”

  “Later generations can judge us harshly. While they owe us their existence,” Dis said. “I am sure they will claim the moral high ground. But if we do not do this, there will be no future generations.”

  John walked around the Vanir ship again, then stopped, gazing upward at the bay doors in the ceiling. “It looks like there are ramps that go up along the wall there. See what looks like a solid rail there?”

  “It makes sense that they would have a way of reaching the doors and maintaining them,” Teyla agreed. “Perhaps we should see if we can get the doors open, or at least see if they are operable.”

  “Yeah.” They started up the ramp, which wound around the docking bay. It was only three or four stories, but the ramp was fairly steep and the rail, which must have been shoulder high on an Asgard, was only hip high or so on a human, not actually enough to keep a human from falling.

  Teyla shook her head as they went around the third loop. “My people have never even heard of the Vanir. They stand apart from the other peoples of this galaxy.”

  “You may be lucky,” John said.

  “Very likely.”

  They reached the top of the ramp, which ended in a wider space just below and to the side of the doors. There was a control panel and a hatch. John ran his hand over the surface. “No power,” he said.

  “Perhaps it is not activated.”

  “Or there’s a short in the system somewhere between here and the medical center down there. Or it’s not connected to the emergency power down there.” John shook his head. “Rodney can reroute it. We’ll get him up here in a little bit. Meanwhile…” He glanced at the hatch. The round knob set low in it looked like it belonged on a submarine. “Want to bet that’s the manual override to get the hatch open?”

  “I will not take that bet.” Teyla smiled.

  The knob turned smoothly and the hatch folded inward, showing a round tunnel about five feet high sloping gently upward to a second hatch about fifty feet along. John grimaced. “Short people.”

  “I am sure to a Vanir the tunnel is spacious,” Teyla said.

  “Yeah well. Not to me.” John bent over as he climbed, shining his flashlight ahead. The hatch at the other end seemed the same, though it was stiffer to turn and the door stuck when he first pushed on it. It opened a crack and he put his shoulder to it, Teyla behind him. The door gave.

  It opened on a rocky outcropping. Just below, maybe three or four feet, were the closed bay doors set under a lip of overhanging rock which made the entire thing invisible from below. On the other side, the rocks dropped away down to the landing field where their puddle jumper sat.

  It was no longer alone. Two Traveler ships also rested on the field, and a third one was making a slow descent, its sides streaked black and its maneuvering jets firing unevenly. Cautiously it settled onto its landing gear. A makeshift hull patch on its side showed how it had been temporarily repaired in deep vacuum.

  “Looks like they took some fire,” John said as Teyla joined him.

  “Yes.” Teyla frowned. “Is that not the ship captained by the trader Lesko? The one we asked about Elizabeth?”

  John nodded. “I think so. That’s bad. Let’s get down there and talk to them. We need to find out what happened.”

  There was a path that wound down from the overhang, and he and Teyla descended as quickly as possible. It was already deep night, and the lights from the Traveler ships didn’t shine far up the slopes. Before they were all the way down they were noticed, and three Travelers came toward them, including the captain, Lesko.

  “Hi there,” John called, holding up an empty hand.

  “Hello,” Teyla said with a trader’s smile on her face.

  Lesko nodded. “Lanteans. We saw your ship. We wondered where you were.”

  “We needed to use the shelter for an injured person,” Teyla said. “There was no one here when we arrived. I hope we have not trespassed.”

  John gave her a sideways look which he hoped conveyed that they weren’t going to say that this installation and everything in it belonged to the Travelers, including the Asgard ship. Teyla kept right on smiling.

  “No, no, of course not,” Lesko said. “This is an open world. We wondered when we saw your ship who was here and why.”

  “As soon as it is safe to move our injured, we will be gone,” Teyla said.

  “No rush.” Lesko looked back over his shoulder at the ships. Ramps were down now, some of the Travelers emerging to look over the damage to the exteriors.

  “What happened to you guys?” John asked with forced casualness. Teyla shot him a look as if to say, I was coming to that.

  “We ran into a few problems.” Lesko said. “Some repairs. Osir and Mirilies are mostly just helping out.”

  “We will be no trouble to your repairs,” Teyla said.

  “And we’ve got no problem with your medical mission.” Lesko gave them a distracted nod and strode away to join a group that was clustered beneath his ship, looking up at the hastily patched hull.

  John waited until he was out of earshot. “What do you make of that?”

  “He has more important things to do,” Teyla said. “He only wanted to be sure that we would not interfere.”

  “Why would we do that?”

  Teyla shook her head. “I don’t know. But I believe he is concealing something.”

  John glanced at the ships again. “Look at that pattern of damage.”

  “Wraith.”

  “The Travelers aren’t party to our treaty,” John said. “And I’ll bet you any money they’re not in a hurry to be.”

  Teyla nodded. “And they are worried that we will tell the Wraith where they are.”

  “Not our fight,” John said. “Let’s go back to the puddle jumper and radio Rodney. We need to see if our guest is awake and if we can get out of here.”

  Ronon found a rock halfway up the low hill and settled himself there. From that vantage point, he could see everyone in the party, and, more importantly, could cover them all with his own energy pistol. Not that he really expected anything to start shooting at them, now that Parrish had identified the source of the energy bolts, but there was no point in taking any chances. Samara was sitting on one of the empty instrument cases at the foot of the Stargate, P90 on his lap as he took a careful swallow from his canteen, while Aulich and Joseph monitored their equipment, Aulich with a tablet in her hand. Parrish and Hunt were working their way along the edge of the patch of succulents, careful not to let their shadows fall anywhere near the central pods. Watching Samara drink reminded Ronon that he was thirsty, but he didn’t unsling his own water bottle. If they were stuck here for any length of time, they would need to find a water supply — maybe the stream bed that Parrish had talked about, over on the other side of the hill. A lot of times if you dug in the center of the channel, you’d find water a hand’s-breadth below the surface. Trouble was, the Lantean rations required a lot of water to make them palatable, more than you could easily get from a simple seep like that. All in all, he thought, it might be better to head back to Sateda as soon as the scientists had finished their exploration. There was plenty of room, and Cai would be happy to take them in.

  Parrish and Hunt had found a way to get in among the succulents, crouching low to avoid casting shadows. Parrish drew a small knife and sliced carefully at the edge of the nearest leaf, cutting out a small triangle of tissue. Ronon held his breath, but nothing happened: apparently the leaves weren’t sensitive to touch. Hunt did the same, taking a sample from a smaller leaf, and then went to one knee to reach beneath the leaves. The big pod rustled alarmingly, and Ronon straightened.

  “Hunt!”

  A bolt of lightning cracked from the pod. Parrish flung himself sideways, flattening Hunt beneath him, and the entire bank of plants erupted, energy bolts rising into the sky and lashing a
cross the clearing. Aulich and Joseph dropped to the ground, and Samara rolled sideways, coming up with his P90 pointing at the mass of plants. Ronon’s gun was in his hand as he dropped and rolled, but he didn’t return fire. There was nothing to shoot: every blast of energy was coming from a plant.

  “Lie still!” Parrish yelled, his voice muffled. “Everybody, lie still!”

  Ronon froze, his skin itching with the desire to move. The air stank of ozone, but the worst of the barrage seemed to have ended. A few more shots sounded, but they were in the distance, and moving away. He made himself wait, then cautiously lifted his head. Nothing happened, and he rose to one knee. “Everyone all right?”

  There were scorched marks on the hillside and in the ground of the clearing, but the equipment seemed untouched.

  “Ok here,” Samara answered, and Joseph echoed him.

  “All right,” Aulich called. She sounded a little breathless, but that was to be expected.

  “Dr. Hunt?” Ronon rose to his feet, ready to flatten himself again, but nothing happened. “Dr. Parrish?”

  “We’re all right.” That was Parrish, though he wasn’t moving just yet. “I just have to —” He gave a complicated wriggle, and rose to his knees in the space between two of the plants. “Ok, ease back —”

  Hunt pushed herself cautiously to hands and knees, moving as though she was balancing on glass, and finally backed away so that she was crouching next to Parrish. “That was too damn close.”

  “What happened?” Ronon scanned the ground around them, looking for anything that could have set the plants off. Surely they hadn’t cast a shadow, they’d been being careful.

  “I think —” Hunt’s voice was shaking, and she stopped to take a careful breath. “Yes. These things send out runners that apparently also act as triggers.”

  “And it changes the aim of the shots,” Parrish said. He was holding his upper arm in a way Ronon didn’t like.

  “All right. Come on out of there —”

  “Yes,” Parrish said. “But — carefully, Gina.”

  Hunt made a noise that was almost a giggle. “Oh, yes, very carefully.”